Tutorial: How to pay with bitcoins online?

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Posted onApr 24, 2013

A frequent question people have about bitcoin is ‘what can I spend them on?’ There are many merchants that accept bitcoins, and this number is increasing every day. Since Bitcoin was first adopted by the tech community, spending bitcoins on electronic equipment seems like a good place to start. I needed a new computer monitor and I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to document my transaction and share it with you.

I decided to search through Bitcoinstore.com, an online retailer that only accepts bitcoins as payment. Bitcoinstore.com functions similarly to other online retailers (Newegg.com, Amazon.com, etc.); you can select from different categories, search for a specific product, filter based on price, etc. All prices are listed in USD and BTC; the price in bitcoins is calculated in real-time from the current USD-equivalent market price.

I decided on this monitor.

Again, using Bitcoinstore.com is similar to every other online retailer. I click the “Add to Cart” Button

Click on the “Checkout” button on the Shopping Cart tile. This will begin the checkout process. You have the option to create an account or you can checkout as a guest. As you can tell, a pattern is emerging here. Commerce via Bitcoin, in most cases, will be exactly like what we are all accustomed to.

Alright, now we arrive at the point where a Bitcoin transaction differs from a typical online transaction. For Bitcoinstore,com, there is only one payment option – bitcoins. The user selects “bitcoins” and is presented with the following instructions.

You are instructed to send X.XXXX bitcoins to a specific bitcoin address. This address is unique to your order. This allows the merchant to verify exactly when a payment is initiated. With these instructions, there are actually 3 different options you can take to send bitcoins depending on what kind of wallet you’re using. For information about wallets and bitcoin storage, check out our Bitcoin 101 course on Bitcoin Storage.

Option 1 – Wallet is stored within a software client on your computer – For this option, simply send X.XXXX bitcoins to the bitcoin address listed.

Option 2 – Wallet is stored on a mobile app on your phone – For this option, you can scan the QR code and send the proper amount of bitcoins.

Option 3 – If you have an account with BitPay, you can click on the “Click to Pay” button and follow the instructions

Once the transaction is sent out to the bitcoin network, Bitcoinstore.com will recognize it and automatically finalize the order.

Congratulations! You have successfully spent bitcoins online!

It’s as easy as that. Spending bitcoins with an online merchant is can be just as easy as buying anything else online. The real difference comes at the end when you go to the pay the bill. Instead of inputting your credit card number or logging into paypal, you simply go to your wallet to send the funds.

Good luck with your purchases, and feel free to share your experiences using bitcoin stores.